THE SCREEN; The Strand Reopens With 'Bordertown,' a Picturesque Melodrama With Paul Muni and Bette Davis.

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The Strand re-enters the entertainment lists after its six-week sabbatical with a raw and biting melodrama dealing with the bitterly realistic emotions. Among the decided advantages of "Bordertown" is the circumstance that it brings Paul Muni back to the Broadway screen after a discouraging absence, permitting him to scrape the nerves in the kind of taut and snarling rôle at which he is so consummately satisfying. This somber chronicle of a raffish and embittered Mexican immerses itself racily in the crude, violent and gaudy life of the border towns. Although its skeletal plot is not unusually novel, the Warner Brothers have produced it in the lively style of screen realism which distinguishes their melodramas. Finally, Mr. Muni brings to the photoplay his great talent for conviction and theatrical honesty, making it seem an impressive account of angry gutter ambitions.The film includes in its sombre itinerary a fine and uncommonly honest performance by Bette Davis as the wife of a loud-mouthed gambling proprietor. Desperate at the virile Mexican's repeated failures to be lured by her charms, the wife eliminates her husband by allowing him to inhale the carbon monoxide fumes from his automobile while he is drunk. Her subsequent degeneration under the goad of conscience is impressively portrayed by Miss Davis. Although some of the irreverent members of yesterday's audience seemed to feel that Miss Davis was being uproariously comic during her conscience-writhings, it seemed to this reporter that she was effective and touching in pathological mazes which the cinema rarely dares to examine.Mr. Muni in "Bordertown" is discovered as Johnny Ramirez, an ill-mannered and ambitious Mexican youth whose belief in the widely publicized picture of America as the land of opportunity causes him to become a night-school lawyer. In his first important case he is so ill-prepared that, despite the justice of his client's demands, Ramirez is unable to help him. He not only loses his case but suffers a tongue-lashing from the court. Afterward he rudely assaults the smirking counsel for the defendant and as a result is disbarred. Bitter at what he looks upon as the injustice of the Yankee judiciary, he determines to gain money and power by any method that is open to him. Consequently he forces his way into partnership with the proprietor of a border gambling casino, coldly spurns the wife's advances, and becomes rich and powerful. When Johnny begins to show interest in a giddy society girl, his late partner's wife seeks to implicate him in the murder of her husband. After a discouraging set-back with the contemptuous society girl, he returns humbly to the small border town from which he emerged, announcing that henceforth he will be content to remain in the dank corner of life which Providence has designed for him.The Mexican's feeble confessional at the conclusion of "Bordertown" is an unconvincing and inconsistent denouement for the carreer of such a vigorous rebel against the established order. But "Bordertown" otherwise manages to impale the spectator's attention before the picturesque and somewhat hysterical materials of the story. Mr. Muni- and Miss Davis are both of great assistance to the photoplay. In addition there are Eugene Pallette in an excellent performance as the good-time Charlie who is murdereed by his wife; Soledad Jimenez as the Mexican's devoted mother, Margaret Lindsay as the adventurous representative of the swanky set and Robert Barrat as the sympathetic Mexican priest.1,000 at Reopening Ceremony.The reopening of the Strand Theatre, closed since a fire six weeks ago, went off according to schedule at 9:30 o'clock yesterday morning. A crowd of about 1,000 persons waited outside until Aldermanic President Bernard S. Deutsch appeared, with a pair of shears and a few well-chosen remarks, to cut the tape across the theatre's front and to pronounce it officially open.Before the ceremony, Mr. Deutsch had been conducted through the remodeled theatre, invited to test its new orchestra and balcony seats and to inspect the improved sound and ventilating system. After cutting the tape, however, he was obliged to hurry off to the Municipal Building and was unable to wait for the picture. One of the theatre's officials urged him to take the scissors along and use them on the city budget. Mr. Deutsch left without them.

A version of this review appears in print on January 24, 1935 of the National edition with the headline: THE SCREEN; The Strand Reopens With 'Bordertown,' a Picturesque Melodrama With Paul Muni and Bette Davis. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe